Guest post - Andrea Baxter is a senior marketing professional and a co-founder of Smart Cookies, founded in early 2007. Educating women on how to be smart with their money while living fabulously, the Smart Cookies have appeared on CNN, Oprah, MSNBC, and ABC News. They have published two best-selling books and host their own TV show.

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As a businesswoman, more importantly, an entrepreneur, I have come to learn that there are 3 very important people you must surround yourself with in order to help your business grow and make it successful: trendsetters, influencers and connectors. Why? Because these are the people who are going to believe in you, believe in what you are doing and will want to help you grow your business as ferociously as you do.

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www.MoreThanClothDiapers.com

What if you could clothe your baby while saving the environment AND hundreds of dollars a year? At More Than Cloth Diapers, our Website of the Month, you can do just that - find cloth diapers, cloth diapering accessories and healthy environmental options for everyday products.

While sustainable products might seem like a trend that companies are scrambling to adopt nowadays, Laura Beaton founded her entire business on her passion for the environment. The online store has been running since 2008, and recently Laura shared her story with us:

“I’ve always been environmentally conscious. My dad used to call me a hippie “granola cruncher.” Cloth diapers were up and coming six years ago, with new designs - reusable, disposable, not the old squares my parents used on me. I got in at the right time, while they were hard to find - and the more brands I found, the more I wanted to tell other people. If I can save people from throwing stuff in the landfill, that’s awesome.”My target market is now younger moms who are just getting into it - planning outfits around them, even buying designer diapers. But saving money is what really talks to people - you’ll save as much as $400 a year using cloth over disposables!”
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We’ve all been there. You are about to walk out of the store, empty-handed, when the salesperson suddenly works their charm - turning your skepticism into a sale. Then you get home, look at your purchase and think: how on earth was I convinced so easily?

The art of persuasion might seem like an innate talent for the lucky, but any serious entrepreneur must hone this skill in order to find success, persuading others to invest, to support, to buy. So how do you convince more people to buy online? These three business experts reveal their secrets.

• Peter Shallard explains there is only one question you have to answer to make a successful pitch: “Why?”

• Brian Clark of Copyblogger explores some basic strategies to write more persuasively - including using story-telling, repetition, and comparisons.

• The Six Minutes Blog lists several tips to become a more persuasive speaker, as Andre Dlugan emphasizes the importance of being understood, logical, and real.

Incorporating these techniques into both your website and your everyday life won’t be an overnight solution, but they will challenge you to look at your message through a strategic and more effective lens - no matter the audience.

When are you at your most persuasive? What was the last time someone used these tactics successfully on you?

Over the last year we’ve written a few articles on running an online business (hopefully you’ve found some of them to be helpful!). We have also had a few terrific guest bloggers and reviewed some expert speakers. Because our customers often email us with similar questions - about SEO, paid search, and the like, we thought it would be helpful to compile some of this information in one place. You might want to bookmark this post for reference!

#10 How to Boost Holiday Sales

#9 How to Optimize Your Website for Local Search

#8 New Year’s Resolutions for Small Business Success

#7 10 Free Software Apps to Manage your Business and Cut Costs

#6 10 Website Mistakes to Avoid

#5 Thoughts on Customer Service with Shep Hyken

#4 3 Secrets to Getting More Customers

#3 Using Paid Search to Increase Your Traffic

#2 How to Build an Army of Brand Loyalists (guest blog by Jonathan Kay)

And presenting the #1 blogpost of the past year…. *drum roll*

Basics of Search Engine Optimization (John Lyotier of MarketingClinics.com)

**Bonus** 3 Ways to Convert Website Traffic into Customers

So your business sells widgets. At CityMax.com, we sell easy business websites (but you probably already knew that). The never-ending problem: no matter what we sell, there’s someone out there selling the same thing.

While competing on hard, fixed factors such as price and quality are natural tactics, why not compliment those efforts by exploring a different channel that opens up your market and enhances your positioning?

Creating a holiday is not an original concept - Hallmark wrote the book: whether through creating holidays (which they deny), or supporting existing ones to increase sales and branding. The global size of Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day are often attributed to their efforts. There is even a term, “Hallmark holiday” used to describe it – a sign of global success (despite the slightly negative inflection).

Case Study: At CityMax.com our goal is to help 1 million entrepreneurs succeed online. Our easy website builder is just one of those tools. Last year, in the middle of a discouraging recession, we decided that what small business owners needed was a little pick-me-up. We founded Canada’s first-ever Entrepreneur Spirit Day: A Celebration of Small Business – essentially a holiday for anyone in small business.

We put out an open invite to key influencers  to celebrate Entrepreneur Spirit Day at our headquarters, with an open bar, a live band and DJs. Hundreds of people showed up - CEOs, students, and politicians along with over $250 million worth of business represented. The event was event mentioned in our House of Commons (the Canadian version of the House of Representatives). This was an invaluable branding experience, and the recognition we have received shows it was well worth the small budget spent to put on the event.

You don’t have to throw a party, but ask yourself what your customer really wants or loves. Do you sell pet products? What about a creating a Dog Lover’s Day? Maybe you knit – why not a National Wool Sweater Day? It doesn’t take much to declare a holiday and tie in your business with a promotion.

You’re only limited by your imagination. With hard work and a bit of luck, your holiday might turn into something bigger.  Our buddies at Grasshopper expanded on the Entrepreneur Spirit Day idea and have ignited a national movement.

Here are a few ideas on how to start creating a holiday. What kinds of holidays could you create around your business? What would it be called?

It seems like you can’t go two seconds now without hearing someone recommend social media marketing for your business website. The friendly side of social media seems straight-forward to any entrepreneur: it’s fun, and you interact with your customers while receiving lovey-dovey feedback on how great your product is.

But what happens when people have some not-so-nice things to say about you online? For example, on Facebook?

You COULD delete negative posts on your Facebook page, but something like this might happen. In this case, Sarah Palin (while probably a little higher profile than most of us) unfortunately ran into an audience motivated to reveal EVERYTHING commentors posted on her page.

To be fair, several of the deleted comments were completely inappropriate - yet many of the deleted comments were simply polite disagreements. John Dickerson of Slate.com explores this in a post-deletion letter from Alfred Petross: “I just wish you would listen to me as a resident of the 3rd Congressional District. All I am doing is voicing my opinion and my posts keep getting deleted….” (These comments were then deleted.) “Having my posts deleted were extremely disappointing,” says Petross, who went on to post his letter to Palin on his Facebook page, “because I was under the impression that Sarah Palin was in fact a political activist who was all about hearing the opinions and voices of the constituents of the United States.”

The Lesson: Deleting everything that doesn’t bring a sparkle to your eye might not be the best strategy.

Instead, take a hint from the United States Air Force - who are surprisingly on top of their social media game. Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker of Spin Sucks took a closer look at their tried and tested rules of engaging with responders. The Air Force even released their official flowchart cheat sheet!

Here are 3 key criteria the Air Force uses any social media response:
1) Transparency - disclose who you are, and your connection to the organization
2) Timeliness - take the time to create a well thought out response
3) Tone - respond in an manner that reflects appropriately on yourself and your business

For businesses, it’s completely normal for the social media honeymoon to end at some point. However, having a response strategy (including a couple of these tips) will hopefully prepare you for that day if it comes. Good luck!

You know all about the importance of organic search engine optimization, or SEO. Chances are you’ve read about how the right keywords and metatags can help boost your page’s ranking in Google. But did you know that Google Image search is also an excellent way to get your business noticed?

Simon Lewis of Vancouver-based 6S Marketing goes deeper to show how you can start ranking your images in Google. Ainslie Johnson explores what types of images your website should use, and what kinds of titles to keep them search-friendly for the Google bots. Finally, SEO World provides their Top 10 tips on Google image SEO.

Good luck and Happy Image SEO-ing!

This weekend the CityMax.com small business website builder team hit Canada’s largest social media and blogging conference six years running, Northern Voice (#nv10). There, we learned all about the changing face of media, how to shape our online voice, guerilla marketing and more. We brought along our @OfficeChicken to ruffle a few feathers, but he turned out to be a total ‘chick magnet’ (click here for more pics).

For those of you who couldn’t make it, renowned Vancouver blogger and social media expert Miss 604 documented both Day 1 and Day 2. Noted local academic Raul Pacheco-Vega (aka Hummingbird604) also live blogged a few of the sessions in great detail – including Googler Chris Messina’s keynote speech and Alexandra Samuel’s excellent talk on “Coping with Social Media.”

All in all it was an excellent weekend of learning and connecting! What’s the best conference you’ve been to lately and why?

Natalie Sisson is a Kiwi Entrepreneur and adventurer. As Founder of WomanzWorld.com, she is passionate about getting more women into business and helping aspiring entrepreneurs on their journey. Check out her most recent blog at Forbes!

Many small businesses are dabbling in Social Media to create more visibility for their brand, products and services. Some are even using it to generate leads and sales. If you’re not taking advantage of these amazing free tools to benefit your business yet, start here.

What exactly is Social Media?

It’s a phenomenon experiencing incredible growth and for that very reason alone you need to have a social media presence and strategy.

Here are examples of Social Media sites:

• Social Bookmarking. (Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Simpy) Interact by tagging websites and searching through websites bookmarked by other people.
• Social News. (Digg, Propeller, Reddit) Interact by voting for articles and commenting on them.
• Social Networking. (Facebook, Twitter, Last.FM) Interact by adding friends, commenting on profiles, joining groups and having discussions.
• Social Photo and Video Sharing. (YouTube, Flickr) Interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on user submissions.
• Wikis. (Wikipedia, Wikia) Interact by adding articles and editing existing articles.

Basically any website that invites you to interact with the site and with other visitors falls into the definition of social media. Let’s get started!

Exercise 1: Laying the Foundation

Sure, you’ve hung out on Facebook®. Followed some folks on Twitter®. Made a bunch of connections on LinkedIn®. But now it’s time to make these networks work harder for you. These are the three most powerful social networks to be on both personally and professionally, so at the very least you should have set up a profile on them.

What you need for your profile:

1. Got a photo? Make sure people know you’re not a faceless business. Use this on every profile.
2. Make sure your profile represents your personal brand. If you haven’t already, create your personal paragraph that sums up who you are and why you’re awesome.
3. Include as much as you’re comfortable sharing about yourself. The more you add, the better these tools can help you connect. But remember there are some things colleagues and clients don’t need to know.
4. Include searchable keywords, but don’t get spammy. Think about words that you’re customers would use to search for you and your business and add 5-6 of these.
5. Keep it current. Update your profiles regularly. Set up a system to store your login information to refer to easily, plus bookmark each site on your browser (Firefox or Google Chrome are the best).

Exercise 2: Strengthen your Core

Kick off your new social media regimen by developing new habits and cleaning up your memberships:

• Make sure your Facebook®, LinkedIn® and Twitter® profiles are up to date. If you don’t have one then set one up today.
• Create a Google® public profile. This will give you access to alerts and rich information down the road. And your Google profile makes it easy for the public to search and find you. If you don’t already have one, start by opening a Google account.
• If you haven’t already set up a Google Alert for your name and your business at a minimum so you know where you’re being mentioned and featured on the web.
• Use the same name on each site to make yourself easier to find. For example I use NatalieSisson and WomanzWorld.

Put aside 30 minutes for each exercise this week and you’ll already be feeling great.

Best of luck in your quest for social media fitness!

Foursquare, if you haven’t yet heard, is the newest social media craze that is driving business revenue. Users “check in” with their phones at locations and businesses around town, and are subsequently earn points, “mayorships” and badges for their loyalty. It becomes a fun and competitive game that encourages people to try new places and revisit old favorites – while increasing repeat customers and branding.

Gabe Zichermann, of tech blog TechCrunch takes a look at how three other businesses (Facebook, FedEx, and Amazon) could incorporate more fun to encourage consumers to buy: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/27/facebook-fedex-amazon-fun/.

As a small business, what could you do to increase enjoyment for each of your customers’ experiences? Is it a free widget with their 10th purchase? Could you be using Foursquare or another “fun app” for your business?